4 ms·

Make Delhi air tolerable but make climate change on Earth worse. This masks the bigger problem, fossil fuels and the changes they cause to the entire planet. Pu

Make Delhi air tolerable but make climate change on Earth worse. This masks the bigger problem, fossil fuels and the changes they cause to the entire planet. Pushing smog from one place to another sounds like a terrible red herring.

y04nn 10y ago
Yes, this is just a way to push the problem further away (in time and place). The best thing to do is probably to add some decent filters to capture small particules before they arrive in the air. I wonder why this is not a solution, maybe a prohibitive cost, or patents.
mattmaroon 10y ago
I was kind of wondering that as I read the article. I went in expecting it to be some sort of modified jet engine that sucks crap out of the air and sequesters it or something. Then reading I thought "wait, are they just shoving all the pollution further away?"
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  I initially assumed it was to be like an incinerator for smog, burn all the incompletely combusted particulate. Jet engines being far better than trash fires at combustion.
tn13 10y ago
Climate change is not a priority for India where people are already dying of polluted air. It is pointless to think about "clean air for future generations" when the current generation itself is dying at rapid rate. As an Indian I will leave that problem for Californians and New Yorkers.
- sliverstorm 10y ago
  Well, OR you could try to fix both problems. You can blow the pollution somewhere else OR couldn't you instead clean up the sources of pollution? India doesn't even have to develop many of the solutions, scrubbers for coal plants, catalytic converters, 4 stroke engines, and a plethora of other technologies have already been developed and refined.
  - tn13 10y ago
    Again, gross ignorance about India and its people. This is probably modern day version of imperialist "Indians are ignorant heathens we need to show them the light". Indians actually don't care about climate change and global warming and will not care for a long time to come. This is an exclusively first world problem.
    - gamblor956 10y ago
      Literally none of silverstorm's suggestions relate to climate change and all directly bear upon the "people [already] dying of polluted air", which it seems is very much India's problem. The climate change benefits are merely second-order side effects of dealing with the immediate problems.
    - Jemmeh 10y ago
      I get where you're coming from, because people are dying RIGHT NOW but the fixes for "right now" and "future times" can be the same solution. Scrubbers for example would make things cleaner pretty much immediately (not perfect, but better), and of course long term as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. I'm by no means an expert, but I don't think climate change is only a first world problem. For example, my mom's country is the Philippines, and it's one of the hottest places on the planet. It's also extremely poor, and when I visited ~12 years ago, many places did not have electricity, or air conditioning. As temperatures rise, being such a hot place it starts to get too dangerous to go outside. It makes it hard to do farm work. People get sick from the heat.
    - jogjayr 10y ago
      > Indians actually don't care about climate change and global warming and will not care for a long time to come. Granted I only visit India about once a year but that was not the impression I got at all. Climate change is discussed in the media (English and non-English). India is already suffering from many of the effects; heat waves, drought and water shortages and much of the general public and leadership seemingly agree on the cause. I was actually pleasantly surprised how seriously it's taken there compared to the US.

y04nn 10y ago

Yes, this is just a way to push the problem further away (in time and place). The best thing to do is probably to add some decent filters to capture small particules before they arrive in the air. I wonder why this is not a solution, maybe a prohibitive cost, or patents.

mattmaroon 10y ago

I was kind of wondering that as I read the article. I went in expecting it to be some sort of modified jet engine that sucks crap out of the air and sequesters it or something. Then reading I thought "wait, are they just shoving all the pollution further away?"

sliverstorm 10y ago
I initially assumed it was to be like an incinerator for smog, burn all the incompletely combusted particulate. Jet engines being far better than trash fires at combustion.

tn13 10y ago

Climate change is not a priority for India where people are already dying of polluted air. It is pointless to think about "clean air for future generations" when the current generation itself is dying at rapid rate. As an Indian I will leave that problem for Californians and New Yorkers.

sliverstorm 10y ago
Well, OR you could try to fix both problems. You can blow the pollution somewhere else OR couldn't you instead clean up the sources of pollution? India doesn't even have to develop many of the solutions, scrubbers for coal plants, catalytic converters, 4 stroke engines, and a plethora of other technologies have already been developed and refined.
- tn13 10y ago
  Again, gross ignorance about India and its people. This is probably modern day version of imperialist "Indians are ignorant heathens we need to show them the light". Indians actually don't care about climate change and global warming and will not care for a long time to come. This is an exclusively first world problem.
  - gamblor956 10y ago
    Literally none of silverstorm's suggestions relate to climate change and all directly bear upon the "people [already] dying of polluted air", which it seems is very much India's problem. The climate change benefits are merely second-order side effects of dealing with the immediate problems.
  - Jemmeh 10y ago
    I get where you're coming from, because people are dying RIGHT NOW but the fixes for "right now" and "future times" can be the same solution. Scrubbers for example would make things cleaner pretty much immediately (not perfect, but better), and of course long term as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be one or the other. I'm by no means an expert, but I don't think climate change is only a first world problem. For example, my mom's country is the Philippines, and it's one of the hottest places on the planet. It's also extremely poor, and when I visited ~12 years ago, many places did not have electricity, or air conditioning. As temperatures rise, being such a hot place it starts to get too dangerous to go outside. It makes it hard to do farm work. People get sick from the heat.
  - jogjayr 10y ago
    > Indians actually don't care about climate change and global warming and will not care for a long time to come. Granted I only visit India about once a year but that was not the impression I got at all. Climate change is discussed in the media (English and non-English). India is already suffering from many of the effects; heat waves, drought and water shortages and much of the general public and leadership seemingly agree on the cause. I was actually pleasantly surprised how seriously it's taken there compared to the US.